Thursday, May 15, 2008

But Mom, it followed me home!

I don't have dreams on a regular basis, at least not ones I can remember. But this morning I woke up with one fresh in my mind. Actually, I think I was aware that I was dreaming while I was still having the dream. And I actually thought in my dream, "I'll have to remember this so I can put it on the blog." Someone help me.

The dream. But first a little background.

A year and a half ago, Ben came home from a meeting at a nearby military base saying that one of the guys in the meeting had a bulldog. I stopped what I was doing to listen warily, because Ben has always loved bulldogs. He went on to say that said bulldog had just had puppies. My shoulders dropped. This was getting dangerous. Then he added that one of the puppies just happened to be brindle. I hung my head, knowing all hope was lost. He has always wanted a brindle bulldog.

They were free. It was over.

The kids were immediately onboard with assurances of , "We'll take care of it! We'll train it! We'll clean up its messes." Oh, fool that I am.

So that Friday we headed over to pick up Pete the Terrible. He was the chewing-est, messing-est, get-in-the-trashing-est dog I've ever seen. It took me three months to housebreak him. He still gets in the trash. He's big. He sheds. But now that I've worked on him for a year and a half, he's tolerable. Sometimes.

And because he's done it exactly ONE time, Ben now has a reputation for bringing animals home. Because I am reasonable like that.

Now the dream.

The scene opens with me sitting on the floor in front of the baby gate which we put across the laundry room door to keep the animal in there while we're out. Only there wasn't a dog in it.

There was a mother tiger and five tiger cubs. Ben had brought them home for me to, um, whatever you do with tigers. I couldn't go in the laundry room to get food (that's where the pantry is) because I was afraid of the mother. My family was going hungry and wearing dirty clothes. I spent a lot of time throwing raw meat over the gate in my effort to keep mama happy. I could take the cubs out to feed them, but usually when I would take one out, the others would sneak out too, so I had a houseful of tiger cubs tearing the place to shreds, while I spent every minute pacifying mama. I woke up when a cub peed on my foot.